One reflection on when leaders have left churches and ministry altogether as allegations of being “too political” were made against pastors or other staff members, especially during the years of 2016 and 2020.
Listen/watch on YouTube or read the transcript below:
Here’s something I realized recently. You know, some of us who have been involved in non-profits and church ministries for a long time, you know, over a decade and more, we, some of us, have never wanted to be political. It isn’t about politics for us. We’ve never engaged in political organizations. We’ve never, I mean, I was registered as an independent for my whole adult life. I was never wanting to go on marches or to go, you know, hold picket signs. I don’t, I don’t get involved in my local politics or government offices. I don’t go to, you know, board of supervisors meetings. I don’t, you know, I just don’t, I haven’t been, that’s not who I am. It’s not, I haven’t been involved in these things for a long time.
There was a day back in my twenties, I’m 51 now, and, you know, back in my twenties, maybe early thirties, I thought, maybe I’ll get involved in local politics. I never had aspirations, you know, I can never be president because I wasn’t born here. Uh, but I, you know, I never had any kind of aspirations to be some big public figure, especially in government in any way, shape or form.
And so I’m saying all this because of the context of when people like me or my husband get accused of “being political” within a faith community. It has this kind of triggering effect for us like we have tried to not be political for so long and we have tried to endeavor to be a true Both Sides community where we’re engaging in conversations. We are not writing off people on either side of the aisle. There’s always more than one side by the way; it’s never two sides. So you know, we’re not trying to pigeonhole people or make people, you know, we’re not demanding that people adhere to certain you know a column, you know, column A or column B and that stuff, right? That we’ve never been those people.
I remember, for example, when the AND campaign came out. I didn’t look up the year, I’m sorry, but I will look it up. [It was 2018.] When that came out, we were like, yes, thank you.
There is nuance and complexity to any issue that involves human beings or anything living. It all is complex and there’s so many intricate decisions and interrelated outcomes that you can’t make. Most of the time, you cannot make some blanket decisions that won’t have repercussions and we’re constantly, as a society, weighing those things out. And then we have to decide, you know, is this for the greater good, right? Or is this something that we can agree that this will best protect and represent the majority of people.
Now, here’s what’s interesting about that, because as we know, as Christians who adhere to a faith that is based very much on the NOT majority -we have been told by Christ himself, “Narrow is the way,” and there will be many who will not agree with our particular faith commitments. You know that. So anytime the majority agrees with us, we should be a little concerned. Right? I mean, maybe it’s just the space you’re in where everybody thinks like you. That’s one thing.
Well, when society at large has ideas and we start to realize, well, wait a minute, these decisions that are being made inherently marginalized some people and inherently cause risk towards a group of people, towards a demographic that we may not be part of. And our job, I believe deeply that our job, as Christians is to protect those who are most marginalized, who are most at risk, and to realize that it is part of what it means to be a follower of Jesus, to identify folks who need our help and need our protection and need someone to be their voice, to support them because every life is sacred. Every life is Imago Dei and every life needs to be embraced and cared for.
So with that in mind, we do end up taking stands with people. We end up taking stands with people that others may say, well, “you shouldn’t be standing with them. You shouldn’t be listening to them because they’re sinful, wicked, the world, the culture, and all these kind of labels that we put on them.” And we make this hard and fast line that says, “Well, those people are not with us.”
And it concerns me that the people who are doing that the loudest and with the most vengeance and even violent speech are people who claim to be Christian and who claim to be part of faith communities. And now, you know, the tables have turned according to them and now it’s the Christians being persecuted and that’s been, that’s been the narrative since I was a kid. I mean, it’s always been, you know, oh, you know, we need to protect the Christians. But I wonder if after all this time, what we haven’t noticed is that it’s the Christians that are doing the first thing, not just, I mean, not all Christians and not only Christians, but I’m only concerned about the people who call themselves Christians who are in my circles and who continue to cling to this narrative. I mean it boils down to [this]: their lives and their comfort is more important than others. That’s a problem for me and I believe it’s a problem for Jesus.
So where does the politics come in?
That we’ve found ourselves, folks like me, folks like my husband, we have found ourselves without a church home that understands the work that I’m laying out here in standing for those who are vulnerable and marginalized, the folks who don’t get a voice and who continue to take the heat in society and we’ve found that it’s not the church that’s working towards those protections. It’s politicians.
And it’s the politicians who are starting to recognize -I mean not starting to but- there are politicians out there who recognize the harm that is done in the name of Christianity or other faith communities who come in and say that “this is against my faith and my beliefs and so it needs to be against everybody’s.” And the politicians who I mean some of them come from the same traditions I do and faith communities I do and they see the same things I see and they say “That is not how we are to live here in the United States of America. That is not what our values are, is not how we want to conduct our country, and that we truly do believe in plurality. We truly do believe in the right to the pursuit of happiness and all things – life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.” We really do.
As a believer, I absolutely still hold to the work of the Holy Spirit. I believe in a God who it is his will for none to perish and I want to do all I can for folks who are in harm’s way and and I think that that’s the work that we need to be doing. Whether or not I agree with them is irrelevant. It’s irrelevant whether or not I agree with whatever their choices are in life; what is important is that I believe they have a right to believe those things and to live in a way that reflects their values.
Do I have to add the caveat? Of course, that if their values are such that it causes harm to others, then that’s where our government needs to have very clear guidelines, and it does. I mean, we constantly work on that as a society, to have very clear guidelines on what’s acceptable and what’s not. And what’s interesting to me is how Christians are actually acting in a way that is discriminatory based on religion. And so now we have that flip side of, do we pitch ourselves as a Christian nation that adheres to X, Y, Z values, and anyone who doesn’t have those values are now the enemy of the state?
That’s where we’re headed and that scares me. That scares the crap out of me and as it should everybody. I don’t want to be an alarmist and thinking about it but I am worried about and I think the church itself needs to be worried about this and it’s not about the Christians being persecuted necessarily but it’s about anyone who dares to question the validity of who is discriminating against who. Who is discriminating against whom. That should worry us all and I want so much for us to continue to have these conversations to be willing to hear each other out in the days ahead as things get dicey. Dicey-er.
And let’s all be willing to do that work together. Please. Thank you.
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Asking For Me 
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